Scars
by Teh Scaley
Summary: General Grievous was a huge fan favorite from the cast of Episode 3. He was a brilliant fighter and an amazing strategist, but when it came down to it, he was a terribly underdeveloped and misused character who met an unfitting end. I hope to change that


**_"Scars"_**

_Written by Allison 'Teh Scaley' McCulloch_

Metallic footfalls broke through the silence in the long hallway. The sounds of gears grating slowly against another, of well oiled joint sliding with the movement. The gentle whisper of the thick gray cape that hid the cyborg's hobbling form.

General Grievous, Commander of the Droid Separatist Armies, Decorated Warrior of Kalee, keeled over, his left hand grasping the plain metal walls, his right at the dented metal housing of his gentle gutsack. Barking coughs escaped through his skeletal mask, getting furious enough to bring the mechanical menace to his knees.

"WINDU!" He bellowed between his spasms, curling slightly into himself as the fit progressed. His hand gripped the wall hard enough to produce small dents where the tips of his fingers dug. He fell against the wall, the fit dying off, but his energy temporarily sapped. He remained in his deformed position, gasping for air in great gulps, coughing still, but not at the extremity it was a moment earlier.

This had been on and off several times since the Jedi had attacked him. He was on his way from his victory against 3 more Jedi. Boarding his ship with his new prizes, including the Supreme Chancellor, Palpatine, as he was commanded. Grievous remembered… he had turned to face the Jedi, armed with the sabers of his comrades. He also remembered a simple motion of his hand, then a sudden strong pressure against his midsection. One that easily ripped through his metallic frame and permanently injured his vital organs.

He rose to his feet again, a hand still against the wall, sliding with him as he continued his way down the hallway, slower now, until he had reached a door. On it were alien runes that appeared to be carved by hand spelling out things that could not be deciphered by anyone but his kind – Kaleesh.

He took a great amount of pride in his heritage. Some consider it to be a vanity, but these small tokens of his past held enormous value to him. The Kaleesh were a naturally proud race, and he was no exception to their teachings. Even in his undeath, he would honor his ancestors, wearing a makeshift mask to resemble his tribe's.

His thoughts drifted back to his home as he entered the darkened room. He very fondly remembered returning to his large, elaborate hut, back from a victorious day of butchering their nemeses, The Huk. Bloodied and battered, but filled with satisfaction…

This feeling was not present. His wives, his children, they were not here to greet him. Bloodied by Jedi, not by Huk No smell of a roasting banquet, just a cold sterile sphere in a dark room.

This was what he was reduced to.

Grievous slowly removed his dense cape. Taking it gently with his cold hands and respectfully folding it. He took it to a table resting against a wall. He laid the cape down with a sort of calm grace, as if it were some form of relic to him. From his belt, he removed his trophies, placing them carefully next to a dozen or so lightsaber hilts. Most collected from the battle of Geonosis. Most still stained by the blood of severed appendages that held them. He took a moment to examine them with unblinking eyes. Then turned and began to the Metabolic Chamber in the middle of the small room.

While taking a seat in the chair placed in the middle of the bland, white chamber Grievous watched the seporated ends of the sphere closed in together to create a perfectly spherical room, followed there was silence. And he sat there for several moments, quietly in emotionless thought.

He felt that tickle in his throat return with the promise of another furious fit of hurtful hacking. His hand returned to rest on his chest as it began, his other, grasping around the arm of the chair, accidently pressing buttons that activated the chamber.

Grievous slouched in his seat, trying to contain the sudden violent spasms of pain in his throat. And as a thin claw-like hand reached downwards, he arched upwards so that his face may meet it. These claws wrapped tightly around the mask covering his face and gently tugged at it with the sound of escaping air.

The face his enemies knew came free and his true face was exposed to the specially modified air of the chamber. A long, reptilian skull, or what was left of it, with pieces of skin stretched over it in a failed attempt of reconstruction. Pieces of bone and muscle held together with metal and wires to assume what may have been the basic facial structure of this Kaleesh.

A tube slithered from the roof, towards the cyborg's mouth, or rather, where his mouth should have been. He had no lower jaw, or at least very little of it. Instead, a little stoma like opening to his esophagus; the only visible proof that he may have once had a jaw. The tube slithered into this opening and began to deliver a fluidic mixture of proteins and bacta into him.

Paralyzed muscles in his face would not allow him to display the discomfort he now felt. No matter how often he had this. He could not grow accustomed to being force fed like a child. He almost found it insulting. Unfortunately, a dip in a bacta tank or bota treatment organic soldiers often relied on would do little to heal his form, now mostly cybernetic. This didn't bother him; he remembered when he did count on such technologies to heal his wounds. It was 'Survival of the Fittest' back on Kalee, and this was often the reason of conflict between the Kaleesh and the Huk.

More small wires and tubes snaked their way from the top of the spherical room and attached to random hidden ports among his back and shoulders, doing whatever they did to prepare his body for the next battle. He didn't exactly care what they did precisely, nor did he want to know. He just found it best to sleep or shut down or whatever he did during this time, it made it a little bit more comfortable for him.

Grievous slouched again, leaning on one of the armrests waiting before two small mechanical claws crept out from the sides of his face. Two spoon-like tips slowly approached his emotionless eyes, covering them completely and leaving him in darkness.

The strange discomforts soon were placed into the back of his mind…

Distant drums sounded through the silence. A deep, slow, steady rhythm…

_Th-thoom… th-th-th-thoom…th-thoom…th-th-th-thoom…_

Everything around him… hazy, like a dream and darkness, only illuminated by soft candlelight. He could remember… a body. A slouching, elderly figure above. Cloaked in a colorful cloak and animal furs wrapping all about his body. What could be seen appeared to be branded by piercings or tattoos or some sort. Stretching an old, arthritic hand over the corpse, speaking what could barely pass of mumbled whispers. Dust sprinkling from his hand, in his other an instrument that looked like mo more then a highly decorated stick. But a metallic ringing came from within it when he slowly shook it.

Slowly and solemnly, around the elderly man, younger reptillian's filed in. Encircling him, all of them, tall, firm and strong, each highly ornate in their clothing, all wrapped in gray cloaks and bone masks upon their face. Their armor cleaned and perfect, constructed of bone, hide and metal. But it was their masks that were perhaps the most intriguing. Each from the same animal as it would appear, but all carved and pierced in strange, unique ways. With ancient bloodstains worn like grisly badges of honor.

The body, it would appear, was also dressed like this. A mask upon his face, but his cape was folded up and at his feet with various personal items atop it.

The elder shook his stick again before pulling a small dagger from somewhere in his thick robes. He extended a scaly hand over the corpse, mumbling gently as he pointed his noise-stick into the darkness. The younger echoed a deep melodious chant, all in perfect unison.

The drums broke into a slow, steady beat…

_Thoom… th-thooom… thoom… th-thooom…_

A young warrior approached the pedastal in a reverential pace. Golden cat-like eyes fixed upon the form presented before him. Upon the ancient creature that loomed over it and the intimidating eyes fixed upon his every movement. The weight of a thousand worlds threatened to crush his young back, but he maintained his composure and stopped before the pasty visage of death. His eyes now fixated on the ornate mask upon it's face.

Shaking the stick slowly, the elder offered the small dagger to the child. He blinked and took slowly and gingerly into his claws. He inspected it slowly while he held it. A keen blade that seemed to hold a mystic power beyond its small size, small alien runes hand engraved into it. The handle seemed to be produces of some kind of bone, very plain, yet strikingly beautiful in its own way.

The drums ceased. And all fell silent. All glances upon the young warrior.

The child looked upon the body again, an uncomfortable sneer upon his long face as he studied it's familiarities to his own. Taking the very hand that had taught him, he traced a slow line across it with the edge of the blade, allowing a watery green liquid to ooze slowly out. He took the hand and squeezed it tightly in his own fist, squeezing out the liquid until it dripped down his wrist and arm.

Gently placing the arm back down again, his gaze turned upon the mask once again. The hand, dripping with green fluid, traced slowly across the forehead of the broad bone brow, leaving a sloppy line of green behind.

The elder watched with judging eyes, his aged from a tawny yellow to a deep red. He held out his hand, sprinkling a clear fluid upon the body, mumbling his strange words again. Then he nodded to the child.

He hesitantly clasped both his hands around the sides of the skull mask, lifting it cautiously as if it would break with his slightest breath. He cleared it from the corpse's face and stared into its closed eyes for a moment, studying the scars that he had known all his life. He looked upon the face, the face of honor. Then he looked at the mask. An entity in itself, filled with a mystic power that demanded such respect from him. He looked at the blood dripping from the blackened eye socket, finally turning it around.

The distant drums started again, faster now, with much more energy.

_Thum-thum-thum-thum-thum-thum-thum….._

It fit loosely around his face. He opened his eyes and found himself staring out of the eyes of the beast and his heart throbbing now with a newly born feeling of invigoration, of courage and of a warrior's bloodlust. He looked around, seeing the tall warriors all with their heads bowed deeply and the ancient looking upon him with those stern red eyes. He reached out his hand to gesture towards the dagger, grumbling words he could barely understand… But he heard perhaps the most important part.

"You hold… your father, child… guard him."

The child nodded slowly. Then all faded off. The sound of the drums continuing on in their erratic beat, before, in time, they soon faded.

Grievous awoke to a polite beeping noise. The spoon-like apparatuses both removed themselves from his bright golden eyes, the tubes connecting to his body removed and his mask lowered. Newly bright, cleaned and sterilized. It was applied back onto his face before his chair turned around, the sphere of the Metabolic Chamber separated where a battle droid was standing there patiently.

"What is it?" Barked Grievous, displeased he was disturbed.

Emotionlessly, the droid answered. "Two Jedi have infiltrated the main docking bay. They are after the Chancellor."

Grievous got up from his seat, starting down the stairs of the chamber and towards the table with his personal affects.

"General Grievous?" The droid asked, watching his commander.

"I shall be at the bridge. Go now. Stop the Jedi." He ordered while throwing his cape over his shoulders, attaching two bone brooches together around his neck allowing it to completely shroud his robotic form, took four sabers from his collection, applied them to his belt, and then looked for the droid.

When he was sure that it had left, he opened a small compartment in the table, revealing a small dagger, sharp and glimmering in the overhanging light. He took it into his metal claws, careful not to crack the bone handle or scratch the gleaming surface. He studied it apathetically. Remembering strongly the words he was told.

**End.**


End file.
